Each day we add the latest links to reviews and interviews that we find on the major newspaper web sites around the world. If you find a link that we have missed do please post it up, preferably as a URL link.Last weeks thread:http://www.danze.co.uk/dcforum/happening/2817.html

Bookmarking this page:Click on the following link and then bookmark the links page that comes back - it's a special URL that will always bring you to the thread with the latest reviews:http://www.ballet.co.uk/todayslinks

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Not a good day in the UK for dance - can't find anything. Ok folks - now go and prove me wrong...!

American Ballet TheaterNew Razzlers and Dazzlers Romp in Ballet Theater 'Corsaire'Le CorsaireNew YorkBy JENNIFER DUNNING "Le Corsaire" is a confusing ballet in which stars and those on their way up zip by in razzle-dazzle cameo parts. There was plenty to watch, with three role debuts and many cast changes, when American Ballet Theater presented this late-19th-century spectacle on Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera House. "There is no one quite like Michele Wiles for big, easy dancing that is inherently classical but has the freedom and intensity of a horse bolting onto the course. But Medora, the beautiful slave at the ballet's center, is an amorphous character, and Ms. Wiles did not seem quite settled into the part at this first performance."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/24/arts/dance/24CORS.html

NYCB - Susan JaffeSusan Jaffe's Mix of Flair and FormNew YorkBy ANNA KISSELGOFF "She had it all. Few ballerinas in the world have excelled in as wide a repertory as Susan Jaffe during her 22 years at American Ballet Theater. She retires tonight from the company after her performance in "Giselle" at the Metropolitan Opera House. "In the 19th-century classics traditionally associated with Russian and British dancers, she bloomed as a long-stemmed American rose. Susan Jaffe was born to dance "Swan Lake" along with "The Sleeping Beauty," and she did. She was not the only American to do so, but she raised the standard of dancing in these works by paying special attention to classical style. She matched all-American dazzle with eloquent form."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/24/arts/dance/24JAFF.html

New York City BalletDiamond Project Revival: Formal Patterns, Quirky DetailsNew YorkBy JACK ANDERSON "As part of its celebration of the Diamond Project's 10th anniversary, the New York City Ballet has been reviving works that the project commissioned. On Thursday night at the New York State Theater, it offered "Circle of Fifths," which Christopher d'Amboise created in 1997. "This is a plotless ballet for 11 dancers, to Philip Glass's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, conducted on Thursday by Richard Moredock, with Guillermo Figueroa as violinist. Formal patterns abound with quirky details. Nothing happens as you might expect."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/24/arts/dance/24CIRC.html

Pilobolus Dance TheaterWithin Pilobolus, Working Together and Pulling AwayNew YorkBy GIA KOURLAS "MOST successful dance companies reflect the artistic vision of a single choreographer — Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham or Paul Taylor, to name a few. The Pilobolus Dance Theater is a notable exception. Since it began 30 years ago, there has not been one personality in charge of the troupe but four. "While Pilobolus's aesthetic — a theatrical combination of modern dance, acrobatics and occasional nudity — has changed little, the group's internal workings have undergone a radical shift in recent years. The multiple choreographic collaborations that defined Pilobolus in its early days have evolved into a specific pattern. Two of its directors, Robby Barnett and Jonathan Wolken, still work together. The other two, Alison Chase and Michael Tracy, prefer to go it alone."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/23/arts/dance/23KOUR.html

Arka BalletArka Ballet, Toeing Some Very Tired LinesWashingtonBy Pamela Squires "Frustrating is the word that best describes the Arka Ballet. The four-year-old local company, which gave its annual performance Saturday at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, is run by Roudolf Kharatian, a former National Ballet of Armenia principal dancer who taught at Washington's Kirov Academy before joining the Washington School of Ballet faculty in 1994. Arka's dancers are well trained. Yet Kharatian's choreography largely links together standard phrases, and the resulting weakness of the program hamstrings the company's potential."http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33524-2002Jun23.html

Jill Sykes of the Sydney Morning Herald on the RB's triple bill of English choreogrpahers. "Antony Tudor's lyrical dance essay, The Leaves are Fading, gives Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg choreography that makes the most of their virtuosity, attack and character. They seize their opportunities and give a charge to the proceedings that are otherwise pretty but have a predictability about them. In this work, as in the others, there was a dancer who stood out. Mara Galeazzi projects warmth and a sense of spontaneity as well as dancing beautifully. In Tryst, it was not only Jane Burn's short hair that caught the attention but her apparent hunger for contemporary movement. In Marguerite and Armand, David Drew's stillness spoke volumes as Armand's father."http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/23/1023864527272.html

Joan Acocella writes for the New Yorker on how young dancers develop and the things that can hold them back. "As for the top ranks (of ABT), the story here is the most touching. From what I can tell, Ethan Stiefel, the troupe's great American virtuoso, is a shy man, who does not like to act. But there is a theory in acting that a performer may be freed by putting on a mask, and that is what occurred when Stiefel made his début as Oberon in "The Dream." He didn't wear an actual mask, but something close, the world's fanciest makeup. It was green, with sparkles and spikes. He was a creature, not a human being, and so, belatedly, he became a human being—extroverted, sexy, mad at his wife." http://www.newyorker.com/critics/television/?%3020701crte_television

Alvin Ailey American Dance TheaterRevelations, Following the Subtle Current Upstream, GraceUK, London, Sadler's Wellsby Debra Craine "Ailey’s powerful, passionate Revelations, now more than 40 years old, is the stunner which closes the programme. Inspired by his “blood memories” of growing up in Texas during the Depression, it’s filled with the sweat and suffering of an oppressed African-American community. Black spirituals and rock gospel drive the episodic choreography, delivered in big articulate images that trumpet the resilience of the human spirit. I dare you to resist the emotional pull of Wade in the Water, so liberating it’s almost contagious; or the euphoria of Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham. The dancers are amazing, the performances so hot they burn. It’s unbelievable, unforgettable, unmissable.Times

Nederland Dans Theater (NDT)Luscious sensations and mounting mayhemBella Figura, Speak for Yourself, Walking MadUK, London, Sadler's Wellsby Jenny Gilbert "When people say they don't "get" contemporary dance, perhaps they should try NDT. The full house that greeted Nederlands Dans Theater's long-awaited Sadler's Wells debut seemed to wise up pretty fast. Faced with knitting their brows over Jiri Kylian's cryptic programme notes, or simply lapping up the sensations offered by the opening piece – luscious bare breasts, lit by naked flame – there was no contest. "...Kylian is such a master of sensory allusion that you almost forget to register the sleek, Formula One engineering of the NDT dancers themselves. Technically they are matchless. Independent

New York City Ballet (NYCB)Cerebral Style Tinged With Emotion in a PremiereDiamond Project: In the Mi(d)stUSA, New York, State Theatreby Anna Kisselgoff "There is some one-armed partnering that catches the eye and a sharp moment when four men seem to be caught in a skating pose. "But the choreography's invention is not sustained in this longer section. "The musical glue for the disparate scores came from Andrea Quinn's vivid conducting. New York Times

American Ballet Theatre (ABT)Le CorsaireUSA, New York, Metropolitan Opera Houseby Jack Anderson "This 19th-century hodgepodge is unabashedly silly. But its silliness is so exhilarating that one can easily be caught up in the commotion and long to leap onto the stage with the pirates. Unlike many 19th-century ballets, "Le Corsaire" is choreographically a man's world. The men attract the most attention, as they did at this performance, conducted by Ormsby Wilkins.(this review is the second of two and lower down on the page)New York Times

Judith Mackrell of the Guardian on Alvin Ailey Dance Theater's opening programme at Sadler's Wells. "Revelations was a predictable but smart move on Jamison's part. Ailey's celebration of the "blood memories" of black America made his troupe famous back in 1960 and it still looks stupendous. The young cast dance Ailey's passionate settings of spirituals and gospel with a self-immolating energy and dramatic finesse which rock the audience in their seats. This is the kind of classic that history doesn't ever wrong foot - showbiz with a live conscience and a vivid past. Jamison takes more of a risk, however, in her choice of her opening number.....Even though Jamison's recent commissions serve the bodies of her dancers well, they don't yet make a convincing case for the company's post-Ailey identity."http://www.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,3604,743551,090.html

Nadine Meisner of the Independent on NDT "It is dance as if reproduced by a fashion photographer, dance as glamorously iconic, a premise that underlies the opening piece of London's triple bill, Bella Figura, by NDT's former director Jiri Kylian. Concerned (apparently) with the beauty, illusion and unreality that preoccupies performers, Bella Figura is quintessential Kylian. His big, assertive and lean configurations appear all the more lucid against the sombre emptiness of the stage. Some passages are quirkier than others, exposing the splayed limbs and sharp angles that lie under the smooth surface fluency of the rest. At the end, the succession of pas de deux conveys almost a holy solemnity, moving in a slow trance to part of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. When the music stops and the final couple continues in a silence broken only by the faint guttering of flaming torches, the effect is sensational."http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/theatre/reviews/story.jsp?story=308854

Anna Kisselgoff in the NY Times on Susan Jaffe's farewell performance in 'Giselle'...'It was anything but business as usual when American Ballet Theater presented its first "Giselle" of the season on Monday night at the Metropolitan Opera House. A packed theater roared its greeting as Susan Jaffe entered in Act I for what was billed as her final performance with the company. As farewell rituals go, this evening was drenched in exceptional warmth and special detail.'Http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/26/arts/dance/26GISE.html

ABT do Ashton: Tobi Tobias in the New York Magazine enthuses about AB's productions of 'The Dream' and 'Fille'..... 'Each of these ballets creates an imaginative world that is utterly absorbing, with dance (and mime, that now-neglected art) delineating a wide range of character and a kaleidoscope of moods -- all set in a storybook landscape. Both propose an idea from which we've tragically become alienated: that life's inevitable troubles can be resolved and happiness grasped, every soul rewarded according to its particular needs. In exquisitely calibrated choreography, as full of intelligence as it is of grace, both offer visions of the sublimity that can be achieved through perfect (and even imperfect) love.'

Richard Corless in 'Time' magazine writes an admiring piece on Fred Astaire... 'He wasn't grounded, in the old tap fashion; he floated, soared like Nijinsky. The mood of his dances also went beyond the comic energy of tap; his were stories of romance won and lost. Add to this his gorgeous poise and his teeming ingenuity as a choreographer (he was, essentially, the author of his dances) and you have a snapshot of dancing Fred.'

Judith Flanders in the Standard. "Before it (Revelations), Jamison has unwisely scheduled Grace, choreographed by Ronald K Brown. This falls into every trap that Ailey so nimbly avoided: the music is cut 'n' paste, a nasty mix of world music and jazz that has no organic connection to itself or to the choreography, which is the standard mix of African, Latino and body-popping that has become the bland Esperanto of contemporary dance across the globe. Jamison's own Divining comes as a welcome relief, in its attractive competence and musicality, but to get to the core of the Alvin Ailey company, one is left, at the end of the day, still looking for Alvin. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/theatre/dance_review.html?in_review_id=616655&in_review_text_id=594089

A think piece by Judith Mackrell for the Guardian."How could dance fans not be entranced by the physically flamboyant jubilation that has ensued? As teams such as South Korea, Senegal and Ireland celebrated their unexpected successes, the body language of triumph had never looked so colourful. It was Senegal, of course, who set the choreographic standard after their first, unlikely victory against the French."http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/story/0,3604,744634,00.html

Susan Jaffe

Clive Barnes in the New York Post on Susan Jaffe's farewell performance with ABT. He thinks she is retiring prematurely, still at her peak, but he wisely concludes...' Still, it's probably better to go far too early than even a little too late'. Http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/51178.htm

Fresh Meat Gay & Lesbian Dance Festival

Rachel Howard in the San Francisco Examiner on a gay & lesbian dance festival in San Francisco..... "It's definitely an in-your-face statement to those who would exploit our bodies," says lead producer Sean Dorsey. "The phrase 'fresh meat' has been used to objectify women's bodies, queer bodies, transgendered bodies, bodies of color. This is about reclaiming power over our bodies, and it's also meant to celebrate our sauciness and sassiness and reflect that this is a fun event."Http://www.examiner.com/ex_files/default.jsp?story=X0625MEATw

Tap Dancing

Brian Siebert in the Village Voice on 'Tap City', the second annual tap festival in New York in which both Savion Glover and Gregory Hines will feature... 'Tap dance originated on 19th-century American streets, but it grew up with vaudeville and jazz. By the 1930s, when the world fell in love with it through Hollywood musicals, tap was everywhere. A few decades later, it had practically disappeared. The country had changed, nightclubs and theaters had gradually closed, and most dancers were forced to find other work. Still, the form did not die, and in the late '60s it resurfaced on Broadway and in the occasional film, mostly as an object of nostalgia.'Http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0226/seibert.php

Thanks, Brendan, for coming to my rescue! I am back online now, and I've just found the following news agency piece. It concerns Eddie J Shellman who appeared with the RB in the early 90s - if memory serves, I think he danced 'Agon' with Darcey Bussell. It's an unhappy story, and I thought twice about posting it, but it's important.

Judith Mackrell in the Guardian on AA.... 'The verdict on the AAADT's two London programmes has to be that the company's dancers dramatically outperform its choreography. Apart from the Alvin Ailey masterwork Revelations, nothing in this week's repertory boasted half the spirit, voracity and triumphal expertise of the men and women on stage. This is not simply a malaise of today's choreography. The three patchy works in the second programme were all created during Ailey's lifetime and even his Pas de Duke (1976) has its disappointments'Http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4450063,00.html

Dance Galaxy

Jennifer Dunning in the NY Times on a specialist dance festival....'Dance Galaxy has carved a distinctive niche for itself in the four years since it was founded. Devoted to the propositions that ballet is a contemporary art and that mature dancers have a place in that art, the company also offers a creative outlet to promising new choreographers. That paid off handsomely on Tuesday night, when Dance Galaxy opened an engagement through Sunday at Symphony Space.'Http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/28/arts/dance/28GALA.html

Michael Tilson Thomas

This came up when I typed 'ballet' into the San Francisco Examiner's search box, and the article by T. Hashimoto is so refreshing that I thought I'd post it anyway... 'Enunciating haughtily, (Tilson Thomas) informed me that Puccini was not to be sneezed at, that his vocal style was directly descended from Italy's first great opera composer, Claudio Monteverdi, and his orchestral style was modeled on that of Rimsky-Korsakov'Http://www.examiner.com/ex_files/default.jsp?story=X0627SCOREw

Alina Cojocaru in Oz

This is a story/interview I found in th Melbourne Age yesterday, but could not get a link to. With considerable assistane from Brendan I have now found one Of note in the piece is her statement that she will be dancing 'Manon' next year

Jo Roberts in The Age on Graeme Murphy's new piece 'Ellipse', due to open tonight in Melbourne... 'Ellipse runs for a punishing 80 non-stop minutes, Murphy's 17 dancers having to also make 40 costume changes. ``Yeah, they really did hate me during that rehearsal period, because it was physically painful,'' he says. ``But they're so on top of it now.'' '

Royal Ballet (RB)A lake of depths and shallowsSwan LakeAustralia, Sydney, State TheatreDancers: Bussell, Cope, Hatley, Nunez, Galeazzi, Meissnerby Hilary Crampton "The Royal Ballet's Swan Lake presents a mixed bag. While there are moments of pristine exactness in technique, they are countered by an erratic performance from the corps de ballets. Occasionally the ensemble demonstrates that wonderful osmotic tension whereby all the dancers seem to move as one, but there are also times when formations are ragged, and the general business in Acts I and III proves distracting. "The whole production is so dominated by the visual cacophony of set and costume designs by Yolanda Sonnabend that the British understated style of performance is overwhelmed."Age

Royal Ballet (RB)Triple Bill ReviewTryst, Marguerite and Armand, The Leaves are FadingAustralia, Melbourne, Capital TheatreDancers: Bussell, Cojocaru, Guillem, Cope, Kobborg, Murruby Deborah Jones "DARCEY Bussell, Alina Cojocaru and Sylvie Guillem all on the same bill, not to mention their partners, Jonathan Cope, Johan Kobborg and Massimo Murru – well, you'd go to watch them dance the terpsichorean version of the phone book. "In fact, that's a bit what it looked like as Christopher Wheeldon's disappointing Tryst unfolded, with its ranks of blank-faced dancers curving their backs or making sharp angles with hands, feet and legs. Four couples have their private moments, with no discernible raising of the temperature."Australian

Francesca Harper, White Oak Dance ProjectJacob's hits 70 with leaps and boundsHarper: The Fragile Stone Theory, WODP: Largo Chacony Early FloatingUSA, Boston, Jacob's PillowDancers: Baryshnikov, Harperby Theodore Bale "Ah, the bucolic barns of Becket! Last weekend the 70th anniversary season of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival opened with three remarkable and contrasting programs, proving that the oldest dance festival in America is anything but old-fashioned."Boston Herald

New York City Ballet (NYCB)Within an Enchanted Forest Behind the Everyday WorldMidsummer Night's DreamUSA, New York, State TheatreDancers: Kistler, Boal, Askegard, Evans, Taylor, Fayette, Ringer, Marcovici, Rutherford, Somogyiby Anna Kisselgoff "Happiness is a performance of George Balanchine's "Midsummer Night's Dream" as led with verve and poetry by Darci Kistler's Titania and Peter Boal's Oberon on Tuesday night at the New York State Theater. "Choreographed for the New York City Ballet in 1962, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is Balanchine's most lyrical work, more an interpretation of Shakespeare's play than an attempt to translate it into dance."New York Times

White Oak Dance Project (White Oak)Eclecticism and an Aura of UncertaintyLargo, Chacony, Early Floating, The ExpertsUSA, New York, Jacob's PillowDancers: Baryshnikov, Anaya, Coates, Howard, Jeffrey, Kostich, LeBlanc, Bookerby Anna Kisselgoff "Like Ted Shawn, the (Jacob's Pillow ) festival's founder, its current executive director, Ella Baff, believes in strongly eclectic programming, welcoming the new from abroad as well as a variety of home-grown presentations. "Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project, performing in the Ted Shawn Theater over the weekend, is itself the embodiment of eclecticism. One has stopped counting the modern-dance choreographers that have been included in the company since its debut in 1990.New York Times

Australian Dance TheatreDance, humanity and September 11 in jumpers and undiesSydneyBy Lenny Ann Low "The poetics of humanity's plight against oppression soared high in jumpers and undies yesterday as the Australian Dance Theatre cast prepared for their latest production, The Age of Unbeauty. "The fast-paced and frenetic show, which opens tonight, was inspired in part by the terrorist attacks of September 11, according to the production's director and co-designer, Garry Stewart. "It's a poetically abstracted work responding to man's inhumanity to man," Stewart said. "And certainly September 11 is an event that pushed me to make this work."http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/26/1023864606689.html

Ballet San JoseBallet San Jose Silicon Valley to perform Smuin's 'Tempest' in April 2003San Fraciscoby Octavio Roca "Artistic Director Dennis Nahat has chosen Michael Smuin's "The Tempest" as his company's major new full-length ballet. "Considered one of the high points of Smuin's San Francisco Ballet tenure, "The Tempest" is a rarity: a full-length narrative ballet with music, choreography, sets and costumes by American artists."http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/06/28/DD218363.DTL&type=performance

Boston BalletBoston Ballet to increase staffBostonby Theodore Bale "Boston Ballet will hire 16 new dancers and add four members to its artistic staff, as announced yesterday afternoon by the company's artistic director, Mikko Nissinen. "As reported in The Herald in March, Roman Rykine, presently a principal dancer at San Francisco Ballet, will join Boston Ballet as principal dancer. Nissinen said that Rykine approached him about dancing with the company after learning of next season's repertory, and described him as a "phenomenal dancer with an immaculate classical line."http://www2.bostonherald.com/entertainment/arts_culture/danc06292002.htm

Juilliard SchoolJuilliard Names Director of Dance UnitNew York "Lawrence Rhodes, an internationally known ballet dancer and administrator and the former director of the dance department at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, has been appointed artistic director of the dance division of the Juilliard School, effective on Monday. Mr. Rhodes succeeds Benjamin Harkarvy, who died in March."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/29/arts/dance/29JUIL.html

Vanesa Fenton - Royal BalletGlamour, acclaim, passion and pain, The Royal Ballet Company's tour of Australia this summer is also about partying and World Cup sweepstakes. Ballerina Vanessa Fenton tells her personal experience of dancing down under...."The World Cup has also been another reason to miss home. We've got a sweepstake going, and are all closely monitoring the results. Nearly half of the 130 strong company packed into a local hostelry after Swan Lake to watch the great England v Argentina game. It did get a little raucous. Was it the Australian lager, or did I see ballerinas, euphoric after the 1-0 victory, dancing on tables and chanting "we love golden balls"? Of course, we spared a thought for one of our (Argentinean) soloists who must have been as sick as a parrot."http://www.coventgarden.uk.com/ballet.html

Alvin Ailey American Dance TheaterJoy, but not unboundedRevelations, Grace, Following the Subtle Current Upstream, Divining, Bad Blood, Pad de DukeUK, London, Sadler's WellsDancers: Fisher-Harrell, Rushing, Machanic, Smallwood, Robinsonby David Dougill "The Alvin Ailey dancers are superb, and Revelations is still a glory, but David Dougill is not impressed by the newer works on show "The high-gloss Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater finally made it back to London last week for its first British appearance in more than a decade, a visit postponed in the wake of September 11; and one of the most euphoric audiences seen and heard at Sadler’s Wells in a long time left no doubt that, in most minds, it had been worth the wait. The Ailey dancers are still, as they always were, superb performers whose fine-tuned technique, strength, passion and exuberance can make even lesser works look glamorous. And some of the pieces in their two programmes were, in my view, decidedly lesser. I hesitate to be a sourpuss, but the tumultuous whoopings that greeted every offering alike suggested discrimination had been put on the back burner."Sunday Times

Alvin Ailey American Dance TheaterDancing without the devilRevelations, Grace, Divining, Pas de Duke, Bad BloodUK, London, Sadler's WellsDancers: Fisher-Harrell, Rushing, Robinson, Gerodiasby Jann Parry Audiences streamed out into the street after Alvin Ailey's Revelations, babbling in tongues. It's been far too long since London last saw the company, which cancelled its September 2001 visit in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre. Revelations re-emerges as an ecstatic statement of faith - in the Lord, the power of the dance and in the dancers themselves. Ailey created the work in 1960, drawing on the Black American gospel singing and church-going rituals of his Texan childhood. He added his own experience of Broadway and of the modern dance techniques developed by Martha Graham and Lester Horton. The yearning bodies of the performers express the (recorded) singers' desire for salvation. Like the cast-down man Jeffrey Gerodias, who strives to rise to his knees in 'I Wanna be Ready', they rejoice in their fitness for deliverance.Observer

Protein DancePub LifeUK, London, O'Neill's Music RoomDancers: Silvestrini, Stricklerby Jann Parry "For Protein Dance's Publife, we gathered at an Irish drinking hole instead of at the river of Jordan. Luca Silvestrini and Bettina Strickler have adapted the secular ritual of sinking pints, darts and dignity into a 70-minute entertainment. Hard to tell when the fun begins or ends..."Observer

Choroegraphers and lengthes of work...Snip, Snip: Dance, Too, Needs EditingNew YorkBy WENDY PERRON "ALL dances are too long," Doris Humphrey wrote 40-some years ago. Her pronouncement was surely exaggerated, but her admonition is as apt today as it was then. Novelists submit to editors, and directors and playwrights have dramaturges to help them maximize theatrical impact. Filmmakers trust editors to make the final cut of movies. But choreographers get no such formal assistance while work is being created. Often it is not until a piece is performed for an audience that its flaws are revealed. "When dances feel too long to audiences, it has little to do with how long they actually run. Rather, they tend to suffer from too much repetition or too little structure."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/30/arts/dance/30PERR.html

Fifth International Vaganova-Prix Ballet CompetitionFuture of ballet on displaySt. Petersburgby Igor Stupnikov "The Fifth International Vaganova-Prix Ballet Competition opened at the Russian Academy of Ballet on June 19, and concluded with a gala concert by the competition's prize-winners and other participants at the Mussorgsky Theater on Wednesday. "The competition was a week of hard work for the competitors, the jury and the academy's administrative staff. The day before the opening, a service was held in the academy's church, and Father Andrei, the church's senior priest, wished all the participants and their teachers success and strength - both in body and in mind - for the forthcoming marathon of ballet. "It was rumored that many of the young dancers in attendance prayed to Terpsichore, the Greek muse of dance, who has long been said to ensure to the successes and victories of those whoe dedicate their lives to dance, crowning some with the laurel wreaths of victory, while leaving others backstage in the shadows..."(thanks Kevin)http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/781/features/a_6766.htm

Summer Dance SchoolsAway to Camp, Packing LeotardsUSA, New YorkBy IRIS FANGER "Ivey Harris, a 20-year-old member of Ballet Austin, traveled from Texas to Becket, Mass., earlier this month to attend a summer ballet workshop at Jacob's Pillow. "You have to stay in shape over the summer," said Ms. Harris, who has participated in similar programs the last few years. "You learn new repertory and different versions of repertory you know. You dance all day, rehearse after dinner, then you are exhausted at night."http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/30/arts/dance/30FANG.html